This application claims the priority of German application 198 21 107.4-21, filed in Germany on May 12, 1998, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The present invention relates to a body shell for a passenger car, having two side members between which a main floor extends which, approximately in the area below the windshield, is provided with an engine transmission support for fastening the transmission case and with a tunnel accommodating this transmission case and the drive shaft.
Self-supporting body shells are known in many constructions. Thus, for example, DE 34 04 801 A1 shows a construction in which the forward parts of the wheel houses are integrated into a subassembly for the chassis in order to achieve a simpler assembly of such vehicle bodies whose support arrangements are formed of a plurality of parts which must be welded to one another.
Frame constructions for passenger cars are also known as seen, for example, in DE 11 56 659 C2, in which the frame end parts which project into the front end area and which also have a section expanding toward the vehicle occupant compartment, are closed at both ends to form a frame. The frame end parts are pulled up to form the side posts of the wheel house and are connected there. The connection with the center frame part takes place by way of a cross member in the area of the front end, but a connection is also provided between the frame end parts and the tunnel. Such frame constructions are no longer provided for modern, self-supporting body shells, however, so that the demand for body shells which are sufficiently stiff for absorbing deformation forces in the event of an impact of the vehicle exists independently of frame constructions which had been customary earlier.
In known body shells, the tunnel and the main floor together form corresponding receiving devices for screwing the engine is transmission to the vehicle body. In the event of a so-called offset crash, i.e., in a laterally offset frontal impact, however, deformations occur in this floor area which also, particularly if the vehicles are provided with V-engines, are triggered by rotating movements of the engine transmission block. This may, in turn, lead to an impairment of the free space in the occupant compartment on the driver's side or on the front passenger's side.